Booking Ahead

[Eire604]

Buenos dias
My wife and I will setting out mid-September from SJPdP and walking the French Way. Since this will be a first journey there are quite a few unknowns (regardless of the books we've read and talks with other pilgrims we've had) but we are not sure if we should prebook our hotel rooms of not. We are hoping that this will not be as busy as it is presently. Si SBT suggestions would be appreciated.
Gracias

 

[C & W]

My wife and I did prebook our rooms for a July - Sept pilgrimage in 2015. The downside of doing so is that you are then forced to adhere to a schedule. The upside is that you don't have to worry about where you will be staying once you start the camino. If you really want to stay exclusively in non-albergue facilities, you should at a minimum gather a list of potential stopping places and contact information (web sites, e-mail addresses, phone numbers) so that you can easily make your reservations as you progress on the camino. Having to spend a lot of time doing this would surely detract from the camino experience.

 

[Eire604]

My wife and I did prebook our rooms for a July - Sept pilgrimage in 2015. The downside of doing so is that you are then forced to adhere to a schedule. The upside is that you don't have to worry about where you will be staying once you start the camino. If you really want to stay exclusively in non-albergue facilities, you should at a minimum gather a list of potential stopping places and contact information (web sites, e-mail addresses, phone numbers) so that you can easily make your reservations as you progress on the camino. Having to spend a lot of time doing this would surely detract from the camino experience.

Thank you that makes sense.

 

[FLEUR]

Booking the next albergue on a day by day basis worked for us last year, this was late September, early October walking from Sarria to Santiago de Compostele and on to Finisterra. This way we could guage how far we would want to walk the next day.

 

[Eire604]

Booking the next albergue on a day by day basis worked for us last year, this was late September, early October walking from Sarria to Santiago de Compostele and on to Finisterra. This way we could guage how far we would want to walk the next day.

Great - thank you. Just one other question. Did you need long pants/jeans or a hoodie at that time of the year?

 

[FLEUR]

Light weight, long pants that we zipped off to knee length if it was hot. Don't wear jeans, if you get wet they take forever to dry. Waterproof jacket (lightweight) which we could wear over a thin fleece and long sleeve tee shirt if it was chilly.

 

[JayPaul53]

We were not among the purists who took the chance of finding a bed - we were May/Jun '16 and the last 2/3rds of the StJPdP - Santiago trek were very overcrowded, and though most could find rooms, some were sent to the next town. We simply wished to not have to scramble around town to find a place - this is our observation only, your mileage may vary. Yes, we were forced to adhere to a schedule, but it was MY schedule and the slow meander each day knowing we had a place allowed us not to be in the early-morning crowd, ambled in late in the afternoon after taking advantage of every (known to us) side trip, off-trail church, and inviting cafe/bar along the way. I was comfortable doing it that way. My purist friends (said in a loving tone, of course) did not have many horrible experiences, but did have to run around a bit looking for a bed. Ours was waiting for our arrival. Jus' my opinion....

 

[Avromal]

Having learnt the lesson the hard way almost a couple of weeks ago, where we couldn't get a bed and had to move another 6km down the road, we have taken to booking. It has worked well up until today.

Our travel was from Ledigos to Calzadilla De Los Hermanillos and had booked a couple of days ago into Albergue Via Trajana. We had an email confirmation in Spanish, and had this great bloke in Boadilla confirm on the phone with them on our behalf. Sadly, on arrival, there was no record of the booking and they had filled up.

Thankfully, on this occasion, the Municipal has come to the rescue here. So, whilst booking is a good idea when the CF is so busy, there is no guarantee that it will work. The Camino will provide.